


Of A Feather

by xathira



Series: Prince of the Unknown [11]
Category: Over the Garden Wall (Cartoon & Comics)
Genre: Beast Wirt, Beatrice's family is ride or die, Bluebird Family - Freeform, Fluff, Other, Prince!Wirt AU, too bad Wirt you've been suprise adopted
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-11-23
Packaged: 2021-02-25 23:20:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,805
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21533614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/xathira/pseuds/xathira
Summary: That's the thing about family... they'll forgive you for the bad things you've done, as long as you're sorry.
Relationships: Beatrice & Beatrice's Family (Over the Garden Wall), Beatrice/Wirt (Over the Garden Wall), Wirt and Beatrice's family
Series: Prince of the Unknown [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1516961
Comments: 22
Kudos: 162





	Of A Feather

Wirt had believed that the scariest person he’d ever met was Beatrice. As a bird, she’d antagonized and manipulated him—and although he knew that she’d only manipulated him out of concern for her family, and that she _sincerely_ regretted it, the fact that Beatrice had been so willing to utilize her cunning on two ignorant strangers struck Wirt as terrifyingly ruthless. He knew that she would go to any lengths to protect her kin, would lie and cheat and connive if it meant rescuing her loved ones. 

Beatrice’s love is a fierce and terrible thing. It makes her strong, and sometimes cruel. And as Wirt comes to discover, Beatrice’s brothers and sisters are _the exact same way._

Bram and Andrew bar the door when Wirt slinks downstairs, passing Ma’am on her way up to bed, rubbing his sore ear and face bright red from shame. The Beast’s shoulders sag upon seeing the determined masks hardening the brothers’ faces like stone. He scuffs a hoof against the wood floor. “Are you going to hit me again?” he asks, defeated. “Go ahead. I know I deserve it.”

“I already got mine in,” Bram replies gruffly. 

Wirt sniffs up a drying droplet of blood and agrees yes, Bram certainly did. Sorrowful blue eyes beam up toward the tallest son, Andrew, in a silent question. The eldest child shrugs, stoic expression unchanging. “I don’t hit my brothers,” he responds evenly. “That wouldn’t be very mature of me. But I think _they_ have something to say to you...”

Before Wirt can parse what Andrew just said, the rest of Beatrice’s brothers—the usually playful Calvin, quiet Dorian, inquisitive Dante, and even five-year-old Edwin—fall upon Wirt like a pack of wolves. They manhandle Wirt to the center of the living room in front of the dying hearth fire and begin muttering and whispering vehement threats and scolding questions at him, hushed occasionally by Andrew and Bram so as not to wake Beatrice and their parents trying to sleep upstairs. Wirt cannot decide which is worse: Beatrice’s brothers hanging on his arms, legs, and antlers while hotly demanding explanations for his disappearance, or Beatrice’s sisters all folding their arms and watching coldly from the bannister—with the frostiest, most scathing glare coming from Audrey herself. 

Wirt can’t slip a word in edgewise… but that might be part of the point. Everyone has to blast their understandable anger off their minds and Wirt just needs to listen. Their tirade of reprimands and his gnawing guilt are nearly a fitting punishment for how he made the family worry. They remind him, often, of how easy he’s getting off. If Beatrice weren’t so sick, they threaten, she’d _really_ give Wirt something to be sorry about. What was he thinking? Had they not been good to him? Did he not trust them?

At the first sign of charcoal wetness welling in The Beast’s deep cobalt eyes, the incensed brood finally backs off, grumbling and glaring. All of them meet Andrew and Bram by the door, circling together to murmur about what they’re going to do with Wirt. He waits tensely while they deliberate. Suggestions of chaining him up like Rusty are grudgingly dismissed. Calvin wonders if Wirt can stay with the brothers in their room, but Bram sneers against that and Andrew reminds his younger sibling that their Beast is exceedingly uncomfortable indoors (it’s true—Wirt only came inside to check on Beatrice, and now that her kin has ceased verbally and somewhat physically beating him up his skin crawls with the desire to race outside). 

Audrey and Cordelia arrive at an ingenious solution. They creep upstairs and return cupping several bells in their hands: the kind that might be sewn to a harness if the family still had their old plow horse. A mortified Wirt is forced to sit down in the middle of the living room rug as Cordelia ties the bells to his antlers with strips of twine like jolly Christmas ornaments. 

“Like belling a cat,” Audrey smirks. Wirt turns his head to object and the merry tinkling sound that the motion produces has most of Beatrice’s siblings biting their tongues not to erupt with inappropriate laughter. “You’ll have to keep those on until we can trust that you won’t sneak off.”

“Again,” adds the rest of the flock. Then they part to allow Wirt access to the front door, pressuring him with glowers of disapproval that flawlessly mirror those of Sir and Ma’am. He ducks his head and jingles back under the starry night sky, whimpering around a lump in his throat, overwhelmed by this show of mercy and also the unfairly comfortable embrace of inclusive _love_ flickering warmly just behind their joined chastisement.

The littlest ex-bluebirds momentarily forget that they’re supposed to be mad and take a moment to wish Wirt goodnight before Andrew decisively closes the door. Wirt knows that in the next few seconds he _will_ be bawling… so he shuffles over to his usual spot by the rhythmically creaking water wheel and lays down, head pillowed by bluebells, left to contemplate the heat of Beatrice’s fever sizzling at the forefront of his awareness. 

He cannot stay. He already tried that, and the Unknown pulled him back. But he also can’t definitively _leave_ the way he needs to, not when he feels his heart sinking roots into the mill and the family that has aggressively adopted him. It’s not so much being stuck between a rock and a hard place as it is being drawn and quartered… obligations and affections hooking into his ribs and tearing his body asunder. It hurts. It is _torture._

It is… something Wirt will deal with later, after the family has forgiven him and Beatrice’s health returns. 

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

The next step in Wirt’s punishment is a Silent Treatment to end all Silent Treatments.

Wirt is used to being overlooked, existing as a shy outcast, yet Beatrice’s family has crafted an _art_ out of shunning. None of them speak to him, but they also never leave him alone for long— _ensuring_ that Wirt knows he’s being shunned. They ignore him so obviously, so completely, that The Beast practically blisters under their scorn. 

Even Sir and Ma’am participate. Sir looks just past Wirt whenever the humble boy assists with chores around the mill, speaking _about_ Wirt but never _to_ Wirt. “Sure could use some more help with the oats,” the man muses, gazing out across a rippling green field with Wirt literally right next to him. Beatrice’s brothers nod and agree and trudge off to work, and Wirt realizes that it is expected that he trails behind them (jingling like a reindeer) to do his part. 

Ma’am is slightly more outgoing in her cold shoulder. She still insists on feeding The Beast… by leaving him slices of pie or a plate of cheese and bread on the windowsill, complaining loudly that she prepared too much food. “I hope that lad of Beatrice’s isn’t off sulking,” the brassy woman shouts while picking another bouquet for the dinner table, the second afternoon since Wirt’s return. She blindly accepts a handful of daffodils that Wirt hands her while her eyes skate toward the clouds. “It would be just terrible if he were to wander off, forcing us to think on his lonesome fate night and day…”

Of course Wirt takes this browbeating without a peep. What else can he do? He remembers the individual bark-grain of every Edelwood he’s made so far. He recalls the rawness of his throat after howling at the moon in grief. His _other_ life, the one that Beatrice’s family doesn’t know about, runs through his veins like oil. It’s plastered to him like his own shadow. He will never atone for the things he’s done and will _continue to do_ as The Beast… so he focuses on amending what he almost ruined here at the mill. 

For that first day or two, Wirt is very good about finishing his assigned chores and sticking near the woods around the property. The family eyes him closely, or else listens for his telltale musical jangling; Cordelia hung those bells on the outer tines of his antlers so he cannot remove them by himself. But Beatrice’s mother and father and brothers and sisters can’t pay attention to Wirt _constantly._ Therefore, he finds openings in the day where he can slip away… not to escape this time, but to search harder for something to cure Beatrice.

At the first opportunity—Andrew, Bram, and Calvin trekking out to check traps before the sun rises—Wirt shoulders into a huge hickory and casts himself like a net over the Unknown.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

Initially, Wirt hunts for medicinal herbs that Ma’am can brew into a tea for Beatrice. He relies on the woods to tell him which leaves, roots, or stems possess antipyretic properties, or compounds to boost the immune system. Once his claws close over these precious things he’s sure he’ll be able to grow them back at the mill; he’s gradually learned that he can only force things to grow that aren’t already growing if he _knows_ which seeds to call forth. 

“Thank you, these are perfect…” Wirt murmurs gratefully to a fluffle of rabbits carrying echinacea blooms in their teeth. He’s about ten miles away from the house; even at this distance he can feel the heat simmering beneath Beatrice’s skin as if touching it with his own palm. “Could you show me where there are more?”

Their compact brown bodies lead him toward an open, sparsely wooded area, where purple coneflowers open to the early periwinkle sky. The Beast gathers up as much as he can carry in his arms, inspiring more flowers to bloom as he harvests them, and he’s about to follow some starlings to another field threaded with bloodroot and yarrow when Beatrice’s temperature _surges_ and Wirt arrows through the earth to appear mere yards in front of the home’s entrance. 

Ma’am and Cordelia are hanging laundry on a line. The only reason Wirt gets away with appearing so suddenly is because their view is hidden by rippling bedsheets. 

Brightly jingling bells startle Cordelia into noticing him. She raises her eyebrows and begins to ask Wirt how he snuck up on them when her mother shushes her. It might be hurtful if not for Ma’am stealthily winking at Wirt before reverting her focus to hanging a nightshirt. Wirt smiles awkwardly and places the echinacea on the doorstep. “Th-these are for tea,” he says, and trots back into the woods.

He swears that the white-hot brand of Beatrice’s presence on his awareness cools… by a few degrees. 

That gets Wirt thinking.

“Chamomile. More Yarrow. Blue Lobelia. Butterfly weed…” On Day Three of his shunning and Beatrice suffering under her quilts, Wirt goes long-distance foraging once again for therapeutic solutions. He’s getting the hang of popping in and out of space—traveling vines like cables, gliding on the wind—so it becomes something of a game to avoid Beatrice’s family without them suspecting that he _isn’t on their land._ Several trials conducted at several concentric circles traced around the mill as a central point confirm something that The Beast has been mulling over. 

“I knew it!” he cries triumphantly after tumbling head-first out of a lilac bush, almost dropping the motley bounty he brought back. Bram practically upends the wheelbarrow piled with rocks that he was pushing by, sucking in a startled breath and then glaring murderously. 

“What were you doing messing around in a bush?”

“F-foraging?” Wirt holds up a handful of honeysuckle twigs and hopes Bram doesn’t notice that they are definitely not lilac.

Beatrice’s second-oldest brother rolls his eyes (ah, so it _is_ a family trait). “We’re still not talking to you, Jinglebells,” he growls. 

And Wirt accepts this meekly, waiting until Bram has turned a corner on the opposite side of the mill to hand his goods through the open kitchen window where Ma’am or one of Beatrice’s sisters will find them later.

One mile. That’s the maximum distance Wirt can wander before he sense’s Beatrice’s febrile intensity spike. Returning home, _staying_ home, allows that smolder to fade… heal… until the _wrongness_ dies out like the coals in a campfire. Wirt takes a break from playing Doctor Botanist for two full days; he tends the fields and coddles the flowers and sits below Beatrice’s bedroom window to sing quiet lullabies to the chirp of crickets. On the third day of simply being near, the sun rises over the river and Beatrice is back to normal.

🙞 ------------------------- 🙜

Most people experiencing Wirt’s current level of nauseating anxiety might be preparing for their first date. The reason Wirt is chewing the inside of his cheek and pacing a trench into the front lawn and muttering to himself is because tiny Florence in her pigtails and too-large nightgown just pranced outside after breakfast to tell Wirt that “Beatrice is gonna kill you.”

Birdsong in the immediate area ceases. Shadows draw a little thicker, a little more grey where Wirt stands. For a heartbeat he ponders throwing himself into the river’s current. “Sh-she’s awake? G-good, that’s such a r-relief to hear. I’ll, uh… I should probably…” The bells even now dangling from his antlers ring faintly as he trembles. His eyes match the color of the castle-sized clouds billowing up from the south: pale yellow, like lemon curd. “Um… w-w-what are all of you doing?”

Andrew and Bram have plopped down in their respective Adirondack chairs; Audrey brings out a picnic blanket, which she and Cordelia spread out so the others can sit comfortably among the vibrant spring blossoms. “Mom and Dad are finishing their morning tea,” Audrey says, as if that explains this. “It was nice having you back home. Good luck.”

_Good luck?_ Wirt’s stomach transforms into a swarm of butterflies. The last time Beatrice had called him on his bluff, she’d slapped him. He distinctly remembers her threatening to make him “crap pinecones.” Not to mention all the evil eyes she’d roasted him with when she caught him thinking about leaving… the stubborn faith she had in their friendship, in Wirt being honest with her, how betrayed she must have felt—might feel today—after waking up to find Wirt gone… 

He is most certainly dead. 

Everyone waits with bated breath for the show to start. The Beast—the Horned Demon, Antler-Crowned Lord of the Unknown, Nightmare of Many and Undertaker of Souls—sits in a self-imposed time-out in the flower field directly in front of the house, facing the forest like this is the last time he’ll ever see it. He no longer feels that awful, sweltering heat emanating from Beatrice’s room; instead, a new conflagration flares against his back. Wirt recognizes this volatile emotion well enough.

_Rage._

The front door slams open. Not a bird’s wingbeat later a grape-sized pebble thwacks the back of Wirt's skull. He yelps in pain, rubbing the spot where a lump is sure to form, and jumps up to pivot on his hooves—already knowing that it's going to be Beatrice fuming behind him.

“Oh, Beatrice, y-you’re up!” Wirt injects an overkill of cheerfulness into his voice. Sure enough, the spitfire is stooping to pick up another rock, wild fox-hued hair spiraling in shaved-metal ringlets over her shoulders and down her back. She’s wearing her nightgown; she must have lunged out of bed as soon as she had the strength. "I know you're mad," The Beast begins cautiously, "but hear me out." 

In reply, Beatrice hurls two pebbles in quick succession. Wirt wards off one by batting it away with his hand but the next thumps squarely off his chest. Bram claps once, but Andrew immediately motions for stillness. When Wirt begs for a ceasefire Beatrice grits her teeth like she's imagining taking a bite out of him. "You. Left." She immediately starts searching for more rocks and in the absence of good ammunition she settles for clods of dirt while Wirt frantically dances backward out of range. "You made me think we were done with that 'woe is me' broken record. You left without thanking my family, _without saying goodbye,_ after we made a deal to stick together, and you think I'm _mad?!_ "

Wirt fails to dodge a clump of soil as big as his fist; it explodes on his side as he cringes for impact. Beatrice’s littlest siblings make a joined noise of awe like kids at a playground. "Beatrice, quit it!" His plea falls on ears too angry to hear it. Beatrice keeps coming at him, closing the distance while scraping up more things to throw: dirt, rocks, and even some poor flowers that Wirt _feels_ as they're ripped from their beds. "Abusing me won't solve anything—just let me get a word in—I'm trying to explain myself— _stop._ "

Dark roots snake from the earth and twine firmly about Beatrice's boots. She glares at him unwaveringly from where she stands, the sky deepening to stormy lead-grey above her, projectiles clenched in both fists; her siblings go rigid, all their eyes wide and staring; Andrew and Audrey and Bram stand halfway in case they need to intervene. "You better start running, Beast," Beatrice hisses. "It takes some killer aim to hit a bluebird." 

Wirt flings his claws into the air and rolls his currently amber-glowing eyes. "Oh, now you _want_ me to leave? Which is it? Are you upset that I had to go, or do you never want to see my face again?"

"Both!" Beatrice roars. She pitches everything she's holding at once and gives a remorseless, humorless laugh when most of it spatters its mark. As Wirt grumbles and brushes himself off—a futile endeavor—the girl tugs at the roots imprisoning her ankles. "I guess I was wrong about you. I thought you'd want someone to remind you of your humanity or whatever, but it looks like you're determined to to be a lone-wolf masochist. You've got _so many_ false preconceptions about yourself I can't believe your big head hasn't cracked open yet." Her tone curdles meaner, more harshly with every word. "Poor Wirt, nobody understands him. Poor Wirt, he couldn't possibly let himself be _happy,_ that wouldn't be _poetic_ enough." She wrenches one leg ferociously and snaps a slender root. Wirt visibly flinches. 

If Beatrice’s voice is fire—a crackling, burning roar—then Wirt’s is the snow he banished weeks ago. He’s separating the disparate halves of himself, the scared boy and the unfeeling monster, and leading with his monster. It’s the only part that might stand a chance; his human side aches too much with the accuracy of Beatrice’s barbs. “You know all the bad things I’ve alluded to before, Beatrice? All the times I lamented about hurting people, and you brushed it off?”

“That’s not fair,” Beatrice objects swiftly. “I wasn’t going to force you to talk before you were ready.”

“What if I’m ready?” A shocking lightness overtakes Wirt, the static-fuzzed vision and vertigo weightlessness that pours in before fainting. He can destroy this dream of reuniting with her family and disappointing himself with a happiness he can never truly hold _right now._ The power—the _heartbreak_ —is dizzying. Here Wirt agonized over how he was going to be The Beast and also be one of Beatrice’s kin when all along he could simply admit all his sins and be done for good. They’re all gathered right here in front of him. One fell swoop. The choice rests in his hands, as easily crushed as the petals Beatrice is stomping on. 

A distant roll of thunder raises the hairs on the back of his neck; a light gale sweeps its way over the blossoms and stirs his antler-bells. He inhales deeply and he ignores the enraptured audience behind Beatrice but his voice still shakes. “What if I start by telling you how many Edelwood I’ve made?”

Wirt braces himself for Beatrice’s horror. Her disgust. For her brothers and sisters to rush in and close ranks, protecting her from the single worst creature in the Unknown. But although he can _hear_ how their hearts suddenly lurch and how their breath thins he’s astonished that no one glances away from him, or curses him, or does _any_ of the other things Wirt believes such a challenge deserves. Rather, Beatrice attempts to rein her temper in, impatiently pushing a stray strand of hair from her eyes. She’s doing her best not to look afraid. “Fine. How many?”

“Er… w-well…” The muscles in Wirt’s throat don’t know what to do; he stumbles on everything he thinks he wants to say. “A lot. M-more than five.” That doesn’t appear to shock Beatrice. Her siblings are as subdued as churchgoers in the background. “Seriously? There are _at least_ five human beings— _human beings,_ Beatrice—who are now _trees_ because of me, and th-that… that doesn’t concern you?! Are you going to p-pretend that what I did isn’t _horrifying…?_ ” His vocal cords feel stretched to the shredding point. His stomach flips and he’s going to throw up and this is just like that time in the woods before he left and Beatrice promised to be his friend but _she didn’t know_ and here are his rotting guts on full display for all of them to pick through, opened like a sacrifice. Wirt wishes they would just condemn him already. And it’s selfish of him to desire his trial to be over so quickly but he’s chickening out like he always does. _Coward._

“Why?” Beatrice asks, neutral as can be. The same question echoes on the expressions of her kin. _Why why why why why._

Another wind catches Wirt’s cloak and makes it billow like the wings of a bat. “Wh-why? Because… I’m the new Beast.”

“You made all these flowers grow, right?” It’s Audrey who speaks, causing Wirt to spook like a stag. She’s on her feet, prepared to grab Beatrice… or maybe she’s only joining the conversation. Wirt sees no judgement on her face, either. “Why’d you do that, Beast?”

“And you brought all those gross herbs for that tea too, didn’t you?” Beatrice interrupts. With her freckled cheekbones flushed and her posture straight it’s hard to imagine her wan and pale just a sunset or two ago. “You wanted to explain yourself. Start explaining.”

Wirt feels as if he’s spiraling through the center of his own grave yet he’s shaking in the same spot and still gagging on bile and an impending breakdown. _No,_ his brain wails within the thick confines of his skull. _This is the part where you hate me. You’re supposed to be mad at me. Punish me, I’ve done bad things so many bad things punish me please—_

“Oh my god, Wirt. You’re such a flake it literally kills me.” Beatrice covers her face with her hands and muffles a scream into her palms.

The Beast chokes out a sound like rusted hinges scraping. “There _is_ no explanation. I’m—I’m a monster, that’s _it._ I… I don’t _w-want_ people to die.” He’d been keeping Beatrice at the center of his attention but his damned eyes are watering and all he sees is a watercolor miasma of red hair and the ash-dark sky. “It ha-happens anyway. Did you know that? If people are sad enough when they pass away, the forest naturally…” Wirt wipes uselessly at his eyes. He stains his sleeves diluted black. “Sorry. We’re supposed to be celebrating you getting better. All I do is ruin things. I don’t… I don’t have a choice. I can’t ignore the whole world needing me to be a Beast. Which d-doesn’t make it less evil, or wrong. Maybe I’m wasting your time.” Air rattles into his lungs. “Maybe I’m the one that… that made you sick.” 

Beatrice hits him with a classic curl of her lip; unfortunately, it lacks most of its usual force. “Well, Wirt, you’re right about one thing: this is _positively_ a waste of my time. I mean, I stumbled out of my deathbed for _this_ old song and dance? What now, evil Beast? You're going to be a victim forever? Just… slogging through the woods regretting your life, ignoring all the not-bad stuff you do because it doesn’t fit your tortured aesthetic?"

Wirt’s spine splints ramrod straight. His eyes widen.

Beatrice huffs, perturbed. "Why are you staring at me like that?"

A blink, and Wirt relaxes. His tears subside, he sniffles, and his sight clears. "It's… nothing. You sound like a cat I met."

Dorian mutters “a cat?” to Calvin, who hushes him like Andrew hushed Bram. And it must be nerves and emotional turmoil wrecking his self-control because Wirt hiccups out a watery laugh, the burnt-yellow of his irises shimmering back to their recognizable blue. 

He sobers, however, when Beatrice slowly, cautiously walks toward him, one hand out as if soothing a frightened colt; her siblings clamber to their feet as a unit and hang back, waiting. “We knew you probably weren’t out there frolicking innocently in the snow this winter. Give us a little credit.” She’s an arm’s length away. Wirt smells her sweat and the herbs of her tea and her hair and her warmth. “But that’s the thing about family, Wirt. They forgive you when you do something bad. As long as you’re sorry.” 

Her hazel eyes tell him how genuinely she means this. How it’s absolutely true, because Beatrice was forgiven for her own accursed mistake. And Wirt doesn’t bother trying to argue that entombing people in bark and drinking their oil like fuel is _different_ than turning your kin into bluebirds because there’s no doubt that Beatrice would insist he deserves forgiveness, anyway. 

“I can’t change what’s required to… keep the Lantern lit.” _What’s required to keep me alive. The Unknown alive._

“Yeah. I know.” Beatrice doesn’t attempt to touch him. She leans down to dust her palm over the satin petals of sorbet-hued irises growing high as her knees. “Guess you’ll have to work harder on the not-evil stuff, then.

The first heralding drops of rain patter softly over the field. Wirt feels like a dishrag wrung out over the sink, ugly emotions forcefully twisted out of him, and he opens his mouth to numbly suggest that the family head indoors when Beatrice steps forward to crush him into an almost violent hug.

“Let us figure things out with you, okay?” the passionate, bull-headed girl squeezes him until his back cracks and Wirt wheezes like an accordian. “I don’t want to chase you anymore. I don’t want to worry about you anymore.”

“I didn’t mean to make you sick,” Wirt tells her under his breath. His talons rest over her shoulders as if to convince himself she’s real, and not a cruel trick his own mind is playing on him while he dreams and drowns in the alter-plane of the Unknown. The ridges of her shoulder blades under the flannel of her nightdress feel solid enough. 

“Oh, I’ll always be sick of you,” Beatrice assures him sarcastically, not understanding. That makes some of her siblings laugh, the lot of them ambling over now that it’s safe to approach The Beast. “You’re insufferable. But so is Bram, and we keep _him_ around…”

“Hey!” The mentioned burly young man reaches out to tap Beatrice in the back of the head, but she ducks and he slaps Wirt’s forehead instead—which, to nobody’s surprise, shakes the bells on Wirt’s antlers. The younger ex-bluebirds twitter into hysterical giggling… and now they’re piling into the hug-fest, because that seems to be the modus operandi of this family: knock-down, drag-out screaming matches followed by cuddling. This challenges the limits of Wirt’s personal space, to speak nothing of his capacity for tolerating embarrassment. He doesn’t know how to react to so many arms throwing themselves around him, fighting for space, trusting The Beast not to hurt them just as the animals trust their Caretaker not to hurt them. Feeling this cherished, this accepted, nearly occupies the empty space where Wirt’s soul should be. 

Concluding that he won’t be free any time in the immediate future, The Beast sighs and submits to the attention of this superfluously benevolent family. They’ll have to release him eventually… the smell of rain perfumes the wind and the syncopated tapping of raindrops on blossoms means that soon they’ll have to escape inside. 

Over Beatrice’s shoulder, Wirt watches the distant spring shower drizzle it’s way closer. If he hadn’t already been staring at the silver-streaked sky, he would have missed the curious bird that flies like a black bullet across the churning clouds, cawing in its hoarse crow-voice. There’s nothing unusual about its dark, glossy feathers…

It’s the bird’s unnaturally glowing eyes that make Wirt cold despite the warm embrace shielding him from every side.

**Author's Note:**

> Bonus Tracks: "How to be Dead" by Snow Patrol
> 
> I enjoy writing soft things as much as I like to write boys getting their legs crunched in bear traps and no one has the power to stop me.
> 
> This fic will eventually bring us back to characters we miss, so I guess if there were faces you hoped to see because you're sick of the Bluebird Family don't give up! ~~or give up it's fine~~


End file.
